Philadelphia's archbishop writes: 'The day when Americans could take the Founders’ understanding of religious freedom as a given is over. We need to wake up.'

“IRS officials have, of course, confessed that they inappropriately targeted conservative groups — especially those with ‘tea party’ or ‘patriot’ in their names — for extra scrutiny when they sought nonprofit status. Allegations of abuse or harassment have since broadened to include groups conducting grassroots projects to ‘make America a better place to live,’ to promote classes about the U.S. Constitution or to raise support for Israel.

“However, it now appears the IRS also challenged some individuals and religious groups that, while defending key elements of their faith traditions, have criticized projects dear to the current White House, such as health-care reform, abortion rights and same-sex marriage.” — Terry Mattingly, director, Washington Journalism Center; weekly column, May 22

Let’s begin this week with a simple statement of fact. America’s Catholic bishops started pressing for adequate health-care coverage for all of our nation’s people decades before the current administration took office.

In the Christian tradition, basic medical care is a matter of social justice and human dignity. Even now, even with the financial and structural flaws that critics believe undermine the 2010 Affordable Care Act, the bishops continue to share the goal of real health-care reform and affordable medical care for all Americans.

But health care has now morphed into a religious-liberty issue provoked entirely — and needlessly — by the current White House.

Despite a few small concessions under pressure, the administration refuses to withdraw or reasonably modify a Health and Human Services (HHS) contraceptive mandate that violates the moral and religious convictions of many individuals, private employers and religiously affiliated and inspired organizations.

Coupled with the White House’s refusal to uphold the 1996 Defense of Marriage Act, and its astonishing disregard for the unique nature of religious freedom, displayed by its arguments in a 9-0 defeat in the 2012 Hosanna-Tabor Supreme Court decision, the HHS mandate can only be understood as a form of coercion. Access to inexpensive contraception is a problem nowhere in the United States.

The mandate is thus an ideological statement; the imposition of a preferential option for infertility. And if millions of Americans disagree with it on principle — too bad.

The fraud at the heart of our nation’s “reproductive rights” vocabulary runs very deep and very high. In his April 26 remarks to the Planned Parenthood Federation of America, the president never once used the word “abortion,” despite the ongoing Kermit Gosnell trial in Philadelphia and despite Planned Parenthood’s massive role in the abortion industry.

Likewise, as Anthony Esolen recently noted so well, NARAL Pro-Choice America’s public statement on the conviction of abortionist Gosnell was a masterpiece of corrupt and misleading language. Gosnell was found guilty of murdering three infants, but no such mention was made anywhere in the NARAL Pro-Choice America statement.

None of this is, finally, surprising. Christians concerned for the rights of unborn children, as well as for their mothers, have dealt with bias in the media and dishonesty from the nation’s abortion syndicate for 40 years.

But there’s a special lesson in our current situation. Anyone who thinks that our country’s neuralgic sexuality issues can somehow be worked out respectfully in the public square in the years ahead without a parallel and vigorous defense of religious freedom had better think again.

As Mollie Hemingway, Stephen Krason and Wayne Laugesen [in a Register story] have all pointed out, the current IRS scandal — involving IRS’ targeting of “conservative” organizations — also has a religious dimension. Selective IRS pressure on religious individuals and organizations has drawn very little media attention. Nor should we expect any, any time soon, for reasons Hemingway outlines for the Intercollegiate Review.

But the latest IRS ugliness is a hint of the treatment disfavored religious groups may face in the future if we sleep through the national discussion of religious liberty now.

The day when Americans could take the Founders’ understanding of religious freedom as a given is over. We need to wake up.

Comments

Abortion is homicide (man killing Man)
If its not a baby then your not pregnant
Sex for death

Posted by ANNE on Saturday, May 25, 2013 8:36 AM (EDT):

“Let’s begin this week with a simple statement of fact. America’s Catholic bishops started pressing for adequate health-care coverage for all of our nation’s people decades before the current administration took office.” - Abp Chaput.
-
Something to think about prior to the USCCB conference in June -
If all Bishops in the USA actively and publically encouraged the reading and study of the “Catechism of the Catholic Church, Second Edition” in ENTIRETY, the laity would know the requirements of their Faith and could take these principles into the public and political arenas.

Since most Bishops do not promote the CCC for all the literate, they take upon themselves getting involved in politics to try to get the job done. (And sometimes incorrectly insert their own opinions as matters of Faith.)
Public Bishop involvement makes it appear that some morals are merely a matter of the “Catholic” Faith or personal opinions of some Bishops, and can be ignored by many.
Opponents of the Catholic Faith will get their backs up merely because Church leaders are involved in politics.
A knowledgeable and united laity would be more effective.
- -
CCC: “2288 Life and physical health are precious gifts entrusted to us by God. We must take reasonable care of them, taking into account the needs of others and the common good.
Concern for the health of its citizens requires that society help in the attainment of living-conditions that allow them to grow and reach maturity: food and clothing, housing, health care, basic education, employment, and social assistance.”
AND
CCC: “2211 The political community has a duty to honor the family, to assist it, and to ensure especially:
- the freedom to establish a family, have children, and bring them up in keeping with the family’s own moral and religious convictions;
- the protection of the stability of the marriage bond and the institution of the family;
- the freedom to profess one’s faith, to hand it on, and raise one’s children in it, with the necessary means and institutions;
- the right to private property, to free enterprise, to obtain work and housing, and the right to emigrate;
- in keeping with the country’s institutions, the right to medical care, assistance for the aged, and family benefits;
- the protection of security and health, especially with respect to dangers like drugs, pornography, alcoholism, etc.;
- the freedom to form associations with other families and so to have representation before civil authority. “
AND
Contraception = CCC 2399 & 2370
Abortion = CCC 2271, 2272, 2322, & 2274
Euthanasia = CCC 2324 & 2277
Voluntary Sterilization = CCC 2399.

Posted by Jimfromctown on Saturday, May 25, 2013 2:51 AM (EDT):

‘America’s Catholic bishops started pressing for adequate health-care coverage for all of our nation’s people decades before the current administration took office.’

The use of Government to do so was your biggest error. “Render unto Caesar the things that are Caesar’s, and unto God the things that are God’s”

It is certainly not the place of the Church to force government to provide for all in society either food, shelter or health care. Force of state is not charity and is not Godly works. It is the opposite.

It leads to unintended consequences like paying for contraception, abortion, slovenliness, and generational poverty.

I like the bishop, but like many in my faith, they are confused as to what constitutes Christian Charity and what constitutes tyranny of the state.

Archbishop Chaput’s message: “The bishops” wish the government weren’t pro-abortion, but they still favor the enslavement of doctors, nurses, and citizens to government. How many times must the Popes condemn socialism before the message gets through to the USCCB?

Posted by John Gardner on Saturday, May 25, 2013 2:03 AM (EDT):

The Catholic establishment (USCCB and CHA) supported giving control over health care to the State and are therefore complicit in the impending eradication of private, free enterprise alternatives (e.g., a vigorous private health insurance industry supplemented by limited State involvement where necessary) which would allow for the exercise of private, religious conscience.

Under the mandate you helped give it the State is attempting to behave with justice by applying its mandate equally to all citizens and institutions (private and public).

How can you possibly be surprised?

Posted by Steven Barrett on Friday, May 24, 2013 6:28 PM (EDT):

I rarely disagree with Archbishop Chaput. However, I’m not sure the Fathers were nearly as concerned about securing religious freedoms when they gathered in Philadelphia that September in 1787. The first Confederacy was falling apart and Daniel Shays Rebellion of 1786-87 practically finished it off. Fear of the mob in the north and fear of losing control over the slaves and with that, their economic status/power, were the most powerful motivating factors in both regions respectively. (Charles A. Beard.) The Bill of Rights was an afterthought and despite the lofty wording of the 1st Amendment, religious liberties were solely secured for Protestants only.

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